Update: November 2008
From Maret Staron, Workforce Development Unit
As we come to the end of another year, I’m sure all of us are ready to take a breather and enjoy some festivities over the break. It’s been a year of much hard work and lots of change in TAFE.
You will see, from the branding changes in our logo, that ICVET has not been immune to change. ICVET will close down with some of its functions integrated into a new unit called Workforce Development Unit. There will still be a focus on capability development, however the role of Workforce Development will be much broader, with a focus also on HR strategy. While the future of the eZine is not yet clear, there is a commitment to look at how it will fit into the new portfolio as part of online offerings to support teaching practice.
We have been busy in recent times working toward two major end of year events – our involvement in the TAFE NSW Quality Awards and assisting with the preparations for eLearning 08. You will see references to eLearning 08 throughout our eZine – it should be a very exciting event.
We have also been working on the TAFE NSW Building our Future - Leadership program. A reference group has been established, and participants are being selected for the first program, which is a specialised program focusing on development of new skills for future executive leaders.
Once again, we have some staff changes. Luke Hodges, who has been doing an absolutely fantastic job maintaining our website and putting the eZine together, has left to travel overseas. Luke came to us as a recent TAFE NSW graduate. He has been wonderful to work with – thoroughly professional, highly skilled and a great person. We will miss him. Penny Haslop, who graduated from Western Sydney Institute in 2006, will be replacing Luke.
Robyn Jay, who has been the NSW Innovations Coordinator with the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, is also leaving. Robyn is to be working for the University of NSW in a key role as the IT Portfolio Architect – Teaching and Learning. Robyn’s skills, networks, and abilities will be a great asset to the University and great loss to VET. We wish her well in her new undertakings.
We are very, very proud of our website and eZine statistics. This site has shown continued growth over the three years since it was first implemented. All our staff have been actively supportive of the input to this resource, through writing stories, finding resources, generating ideas and providing feedback. The results speak for themselves:
- 387,906 page views for the year to date, compared to this time last year of 306,214 page views.
- Page views this year have already surpassed last year’s total (372,393) with two months of the year remaining.
- This shows a 21% increase in page views over 2008.
In the past, we’ve been pleasantly surprised to see in our statistics, just how many people visit our site after hours and on weekends. I hope however, that you all take a break during the holidays and come back refreshed in 2009. We wish you a fabulous holiday break and all the best for the festive season.